


A Second Chance

by allineedisaquill



Series: Better Late Than Never [3]
Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Fluff, Friendship, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19177912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allineedisaquill/pseuds/allineedisaquill
Summary: “Overwhelming every thought was the fear that he could lose what they had gained between them, something that had been fragile from the start. He swore they wouldn’t, not if he could help it. The only option he had was to buckle up, find Pat, and apologise.”





	A Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> The final part in this series. Strap yourselves in. Here we go.

The following Thursday rolled around faster than the Captain realised. Perhaps it was anticipation that caused time to pass like it was nothing at all, or perhaps the passage of it was just different after being dead for so long. Either way it was Thursday, and a quarter to nine in the evening saw the Captain in his usual spot, television on courtesy of Alison.

That evening, however, he waited before he allowed himself to settle in.

He waited for Pat.

There was no guarantee that the other man would even take him up on his offer, nothing about the previous week to suggest Pat wouldn’t be feeling better and would therefore need his sorry excuse for company, yet still he waited. Most would call it wishful thinking but the Captain didn’t go in for those sorts of thoughts. He was simply being courteous, and his watchful and expectant eyes on the empty doorway did not mean he was _eager._

When the clock struck nine precisely, he had resigned himself to a solitary night, swagger stick held in a tight grasp that just erred on the side of anxious. Disappointment clouded his vision and every attempt to thwart the dreaded feeling was altogether fruitless.

He was relieved, then, when Pat appeared sheepish at the doorway three minutes late.

“Don’t let the others see you standing there, man. Chop chop,” he said, and though he tried his utmost to seem indifferent, his body betrayed him. His grip on his stick tightened, the thing twisting in his hands, and nerves spread through him like wildfire. Pat’s mere presence had become enough to cause such a reaction and what a woeful thing it was indeed. His brain would never let him hear the end of it, he was certain.

“Sorry,” Pat muttered, and quickly joined him on the sofa.

They took the same arrangement as before and with their legs pressed neatly, the Captain found it doubly difficult to concentrate on the television.

“So,” the Captain said after a few minutes more. “I take it you feel no better?”

Pat hadn’t been expecting the question, it seemed, because he blinked and looked around at the Captain with raised eyebrows. “Oh no, actually, I’ve cheered up a bit.” He smoothed a hand down his scarf and smiled, albeit shakily. “Not a hundred percent, but getting there.”

The Captain was glad to hear it, a smile at his lips before he could stop it. “Ah, that’s more like it. Never does oneself any good to dwell on the negatives. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get on with it,” he said firmly, punctuated with a sure nod. “I knew you would.”

The smaller man wore a smile of his own as he pushed his glasses up. In fact, his pleased expression almost looked flustered, like the Captain’s praise and rare show of support was unexpected but not at all unwelcome. He kept his gaze on the telly.

“Thank you,” he said, “and for this, too,” he said, gesturing vaguely around him.

“Of course,” the Captain replied, shifting in his seat slightly at the soft thanks.

When Pat sat forward suddenly, intent on the programme they were watching that night, it caused the Captain to do the same. All at once they tuned in, sharp and attentive, their previous distraction faded to the background.

The conditions of World War Two. Life on the front line, in the trenches, the stories of those who lost their lives and the stories of those who survived it. The segment painted a horrific picture, sparing no grizzly detail, and the pair remained silent when it was over.

Until, that was, Pat chanced a look at the Captain’s face and saw the pain there, settled in the crease of his brows and the thin line of his lips. His eyes looked hollow, haunted, trained on the television like he’d forgotten how to look away, how to even _blink._

“Are you okay?” He asked, voice small.

The Captain blinked a few times but did not look at him. “There was little glory,” he said finally, after a stretch of silence. “I saw grown men weep. I saw boys - barely men at all - with no idea what they were about to endure. If they made it, they would have never been the same. No one was.”

Though the show had moved on, the Captain was firmly stuck in the past it had shown. He could taste the damp air, the dirt and the smoke. Then he was on home soil, training boys to do things nobody should ever have to do. It left his hands with a tremor that only diminished when he squeezed his swagger stick too tightly, knuckles as pale as his face.

Pat regarded him quietly. “You always talk about the war like-”

“I know,” the Captain said sharply, and then more softly, “I know.”

Pat knew the other man enough to know that _that_ was the end of that.

There was nothing he could have said that would have sufficed in any case, that was Pat’s opinion, but he offered his comfort in the form of a hand on the Captain’s arm. Hesitant at first, then more sure, fingers curled just barely over the fabric of his uniform jacket.

The touch warmed the Captain where it began just below his wrist, heat seeping from that one spot and spreading outward throughout his entire body. His eyes were drawn there as a lump formed in his throat, and he felt the opposite of the need to pull away. Such a vulnerable display ought to have sent him running, hiding, but the Captain was rooted to the spot and left aching for something - _anything_ \- more. Pat had offered the smallest drop of comfort and solace and now the Captain needed the whole ocean. His neck and ears were set aflame and he couldn’t, for the life of him, think a single coherent thought.

“I…” He said dumbly, trailed off into nothing.

God, their legs still touched too. He was going to die all over again.

“It’s okay,” Pat said simply. “You don’t need to say anything. It’s okay. Shall we keep watching? I can get Alison to turn it over if you like, just say the word.”

Pat, bless him to the heavens, was offering him an out regardless. He gave him the chance to run without an excuse, without judgement, and it would be okay. The Captain wanted to cry all of a sudden. This man, this wonderfully selfless man, never ceased to amaze him.

It occurred to him in that brief pocket of time that the kind of man he thought he wanted wasn’t necessarily the kind of man he _needed_ and that once he had found the latter, the two would bleed into one all the same. Certainly a turn up for the books.

Flummoxed, the Captain shook his head. “No, no, that’s alright. The worst is over now, hm?” His voice was weak, but he knew Pat would never call him on it.

The younger man glanced back to the television. “Think it’s back to tanks now, yep,” he said.

“Much better,” the Captain said decidedly, his stiff upper lip back in place.

He cleared his throat and the hand fell away.

They watched on until it was time for bed, and the Captain realised what it was like to miss someone even when they were sitting right beside him.

 

When the Captain arrived the following week to find Pat and the television already waiting for him, he was rather caught off-guard to say the least. He paused by the doorway, rocked back on his heels, and nervously took his swagger stick from its placement under his arm.

“You’re punctual, for once,” he said when he finally strode into the room.

Pat only smiled as the Captain joined him. “Nine on the dot,” he said proudly.

The Captain was glad he was already dead. That surely would have offed him if not.

“I got Julian to turn on the telly for us,” Pat continued once they were seated side-by-side as usual, and he leaned in slightly with his voice low. “Alison was here before that, said she needs to save on her bills so no war programmes for now, but I thought…” He shrugged, then his lips flitted briefly in a smaller, more secret smile. “I thought I’d break the rules, just this once,” he said.

“Why?” The Captain asked, bemused but pleased all the same because there was Pat, once again amazing him, and he couldn’t help but feel a unique buzz at the fact that they were conspiring together, sharing something only they knew about.

It was thrilling. He was _thrilled._

“Well, I just think this… It does us both some good,” Pat explained, shoving his glasses up and looking much more solemn. “So I won’t tell if you won’t.”

The Captain narrowed his eyes as he smiled and rolled his jaw. “Yes, I think I can agree to that,” he said after hardly any thought at all. “I’m inclined to the same logic, after all.”

“Well that’s good then,” Pat replied happily.

“Yes,” the Captain said, because it definitely was.

What was far less good was when they realised, both at once, that their show had taken a melancholy turn much the same as the previous week - only this time, it seemed the whole episode was to be centred around the _people_ of the war rather than its weapons.

The Captain squared his shoulders as if preparing to accept a challenge, ready to brave-face the duration of it even if his skin wasn’t as thick as he liked to believe.

He lasted three whole minutes before sadness sullied his features and despite himself, one of his hands left his lap in favour of taking up the small space between them on the sofa seat. It was unexplored territory. No man’s land. The simplest of moves it may have been but he couldn’t take it back once it was done and the Captain found his body flushed with white-hot nerves. They proved a dangerous cocktail when mixed with the grief the programme quickly dredged up once again, and he swore his temples had gathered a fine sheen of sweat.

With his eyes fixed firm on the screen, he was unprepared for the ginger touch to his hand where it rested, and when he remained firm and didn’t pull away, Pat’s gentle fingertips hooked his own.

The lump in his throat doubled in size, because the Captain had led them quite suddenly to a precipice and Pat had met him there like it was the easiest thing in the world, anchoring him to the spot and refusing to see him be _alone_ . It was so much more than a reassuring touch to his arm; it easily had to be the most intimacy either men had had since their respective deaths, and that meant something. It meant _everything._

“There’s something I want to say,” Pat said, and finally looked at him.

He still did not let go.

The Captain turned his own head slowly, meeting Pat’s eyes with a swallow. “Yes?”

Neither looked away for another moment, their fingers remained curled together, and slowly their expressions sobered. Pat was the first to duck his head, seemingly searching for what to say and just the right way to say it. The Captain waited with his heart in his throat.

“Well, you see, the thing is...” Pat began, only to be interrupted.

Alison marched into the room and her entrance, abrupt as it was, had the Captain flinching away from Pat entirely as if he had been badly burned. All at once, the moment was ruined. _Beyond_ ruined. It had been obliterated in a matter of seconds.

“Now look here, it’s not what it looks like,” the Captain said, standing up.

“It’s exactly what it looks like,” Alison fired back, but before he could protest further, she brandished an angry finger toward the television that played in the background. “I told Pat no television and you completely ignored me. I expect it from you, Captain,” she said, then turned her attention to the smaller man sitting guiltily on the sofa, “but you, Pat? Come on.”

Pat had the decency to look at his shoes, a glum show. “Sorry, Alison,” he offered meekly.

Without another word, she flipped off the television with the remote and stormed out again.

The Captain was unsure of what he was to do next, staring between Pat and the door.

“That was my fault,” Pat said, standing to cross the room once he was sure Alison had retreated to her room for the night. He didn’t think twice before touching the Captain’s elbow kindly, always so kindly. “Sorry about your programme.”

He hastened away from the contact, regaining some composure. “That’s quite enough of that,” he said, and just like the moment where he had offered his hand in the first place, it was too late to take it back was it was done. It was as though the shock of Alison’s arrival had forced him back into old habits where denial was the easier route to take and damned were the consequences of his actions.

With a flash of something quick and pained, Pat said, “I think I’d better go,” and then he did just that, legs carrying him from the room as fast as they could.

Before he could blink, he was left standing in his wake with nothing but a heavy heart and a guilty conscience for company. He cursed himself for his ineptitude, the tactlessness he’d employed and the careless way he had behaved with Pat’s feelings; after everything, the other man deserved so much more.

It couldn’t be left to fester. Left until morning was too much time, and left until the following Thursday would have been disastrous. Overwhelming every thought was the fear that he could lose what they had gained between them, something that had been fragile from the start. He swore they wouldn’t, not if he could help it. The only option he had was to buckle up, find Pat, and apologise.

He found Pat’s room empty, having called out a few times and finally poked his head in.

“Damn,” he muttered to himself, trying to think. He knew Pat would seek out space, likely felt the need to be alone, and his mind raced to think of where the other man had gotten to.

When he saw Fanny on her way to her room, he sucked in a breath.

“Ah, Fanny,” he said, smiling tightly. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen Pat anywhere, have you?”

She didn’t stop in her tracks, simply raised a hand as she continued walking. “Outside.”

The Captain turned sharply on his heel without so much as a thank you.

 

When he stepped from the house, he almost walked right into Pat who was perched on the doorstep. If he knew of the Captain’s presence, he didn’t acknowledge it, eyes looking straight ahead at the grass and the trees and the way the wind moved through them both. The Captain could feel the weather no longer, but he still suppressed a shiver.

He heaved a sigh as he dropped himself to the space beside the other man.

“Can I help you?” Pat asked, and the Captain flinched slightly at the tone. The words weren’t helpful and polite, but tinged with upset, and while he couldn’t exactly describe Pat as _angry_ , he was definitely strongly cross with him.

The Captain held his stick tightly and hummed. “Yes, perhaps you can,” he said, watching Pat’s face closely. He hated to see him look so down; it reminded him of the day he had first joined him, when he’d opened up about his loneliness. “I’ve been a bit of a fool to someone I know and I was hoping I could make it right with him. He’s become rather dear to me, you see,” he said, and his whole body threatened to tremble.

Pat looked conflicted, but nodded. “Well, you should probably start by saying sorry.”

“I am,” the Captain answered almost immediately. “Sorry, that is. Completely. I was...terribly out of line. Nothing but an old walrus.”

The younger man recognised that and turned his head, and the Captain was met with blue eyes made almost watery with emotion. “You can be, sometimes,” he agreed, but without the conviction that the Captain rather felt he deserved, all things considered.

“Please forgive me, Pat,” he said then, voice thick and chest tight, and against everything he had instilled in himself over the years, he let one hand uncurl from his swagger stick so that it could reach out for Pat instead. He grasped his wrist feather-light, the skin warm to touch.

Pat only stared for a second longer before the smallest of smiles bloomed from a frown.

“I do, ‘course I do,” he said, lashes flickering as he blinked. When he turned his hand over so he could hold the Captain’s properly, he could have burst, but Pat didn’t give him the chance to. “Please don’t push me away, that’s all I ask. You don’t need to, I want you to know that. Not me.” He held the Captain’s hand a little more surely and held his gaze that way too.

He nodded. “I’ve been trying,” he said, and truly he had, “but I’ll try harder. I promise.”

“Then that’s okay,” Pat told him, and stroked the back of his hand with his thumb.

They were back at the precipice again, only this time he was ready to fall.

The Captain squeezed Pat’s hand ever so gently. “You were going to say something before,” he prompted, and if he had a pulse it would have surely jack-hammered in that moment.

Pat looked into his eyes for a beat, searching, and he seemed to find what he was looking for because the next beat had him closing the distance between them. Their lips found one another’s, tender and slow, and a surprised gasp from the Captain was lost between the kiss. The grip on his stick went slack as he held onto Pat tightly and the world around them faded, quite blissfully, into nothing.

It ended too soon and the Captain’s eyes took a moment to open when Pat pulled away.

“I was going to say that,” Pat said, his voice verging on a squeak, “but also this: I’m fairly sure I have feelings for you, and I don’t know what you want to do about them because I’m fairly sure you have them too.” He paused, then added, “Definitely sure now, actually.”

The Captain cleared his throat. “Yes, your hunch was correct. Well done,” he said.

Pat beamed at him like the cat who got the cream but he still held the Captain’s hand warmly in his own, covered in a moment by his free one. “So what do we do?” He asked softly. “What do you _want_ , Captain? Because I’m here, now. You’ve got me.”

He had never been faced with this before. All his life he had gone without, and leave it to him to finally find love, of all things, after his living time on Earth was already done. He thought about them, about Pat, about the long stretch of time that was forever and all the other people inside the house they had yet to face with what they had between them. His mind felt heavy.

He supposed they could always start small.

“Well for starters, you must start using my actual name - when we’re alone, of course,” he said, because it seemed quite bizarre to kiss a man who didn’t even know who he _was_. He leaned in until his lips brushed the shell of Pat’s ear and he heard the other man swallow when he whispered his name.

Pat repeated it with a smile, letting it roll off his tongue. “I like that,” he said after a moment.

“For you only,” the Captain gently insisted.

He was thanked in kind with a kiss, grateful and warm, one of Pat’s hands curled at the base of his neck where fingers brushed close-cropped hair. This time, the Captain shook himself from his stupor, pressing in where he’d once been rooted to the spot. He tilted his head, moved his mouth, and let one kiss melt into the next. He soaked up every perfect second, like Pat was the very sun and he had been all his life, until then, without light.

They parted with a soft sound but the Captain drew their foreheads together as he took in a few shaky breaths.

“We can talk to that lot in there together,” Pat said, referring to the house. “When you’re ready. When we both are. There’s no rush, just so you know. This is new to me too.”

The Captain thought of Pat’s life, then. His marriage, his son and grandson, his _family_. Most of those things the Captain himself had never had, but was understanding of at the very least. He let a hand caress down the expanse of Pat’s back and he frowned.

“You’re quite sure this is what you want?” He asked. “That _I’m_ what you want? I’m a far cry from your wife, after all. I can’t offer you what you had in your life, Pat. You know this.”

Pat’s face was calm. He squeezed his hand. “I know all that, yeah, but I’m not after what I had in my life. I’ll always have my family with me, just like I’ll be with them, but if they can move on and be happy despite everything, then I think I deserve to as well,” he said. “Who says we can’t have that, even if we’re dead? There’s no rules, and if we’re stuck here, I’d rather make the most of it. I’d rather _share_ it, with someone who wants to share it with me.”

Of course Pat could take something he’d managed to complicated and fret over and iron it out until it made sense, perfect sense, and the Captain didn’t know why he had ever worried.

“Well, when you put it like that…” The Captain said.

Pat had that pleased look again. “Up here for thinking, down here for dancing,” he said, pointing to his head and then his legs in turn, his smile only growing.

The Captain simply raised an eyebrow with a smirk, quite baffled. “Yes, indeed.”

They got to their feet, the Captain’s back and knees grateful to be stood again, and fell easily in step with each other as they made their way back inside the house.

“So do you reckon Julian will turn on the television for us again?” The Captain asked as they strolled down the hallway that would take them back to the living room.

Pat gave him a warning look, and the Captain laughed.

“I know, I’m joking,” he assured, letting a hand rest briefly on Pat’s lower back. It was such a small thing to do, but the fact that he _could_ was exhilarating. He watched as Pat’s face instantly brightened again under the simple gesture.

Halfway down the corridor they heard voices, raised and sounding as though they came from the library, and the pair shared a mutual look of dread.

“Better go see what they’re up to,” Pat said.

The Captain hummed in agreement and they set off together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I truly hope the conclusion to this series made you happy. Comments/kudos are always appreciated - maybe I'll write more for these two if you let me know you liked it, who knows? You can also say hello at bbcghosts.tumblr.com!


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